From doctor visits, nipple tattoos and pink ribbons, living life after cancer.

May 2009

May 13, 2009

Yes, yes, it's been a while since I posted. It's hard, frankly, to write about these days because I live it so much and I don't want cancer to consume more of my life than it has to.

And yet things are going fairly well.

I collapsed in September with a blood clot in my lung. It was pretty funny, actually, passing out at work and people running around yelling, call 911, call 911. Well, it was funny to picture in my mind. I wasn't awake.

I spent four days in the hospital including one in ICU, a regular event for folks with a pulmonary embolism, which I had. ICU was pretty nice, actually. Expensive. But nice.

The whole thing was a bit of a blessing in disguise. It led to me taking some chemo again, xeloda and tykerb, which kicked back the cancer quite a bit. I'm still on it and while it's not working as well as it did, it is keeping things relatively at bay.

And I'm back on the alternative protocal -- or as Marla says, my nuts and bark diet. I feel good, I have energy, my chest doesn't look as lumpy as it did six months ago, I can breath. All in all, I'm doing OK.

I've never thought this would actually kill me but I've had my moments of despair. Thankfully, they're not as bad now as they were. I just have to deal with the stress of pay cuts and being treated like crap at work. But that's nothing unusual these days in the news business. I try to let it all slide off my back and look for other ways to get out stress. I sit in the sun and take deep breaths, enjoy the birds singing and the cats running through the grass. I look forward to the future and believe I will have one. And that's what you have to do. As my father always said, play 'em like you got 'em. Of course, he was talking about card games but it goes for life, too, I think.

About Kathleen L'Ecluse

The Big COne night I rolled over and found a lump in my breast. That started my adventure with cancer which led through three surgeries, chemo and radiation, four free years, another breast cancer followed by a double boobectomy and chemo again. Ah, the thrills. But in the meantime I've been to Vietnam, Washington DC and Hawaii. I've written one book and am working on others. I work full-time as an editor on a newspaper. In other words, I live a life. That's what you do after you have cancer.